WWALS Watershed Coalition advocates for conservation and stewardship of the Withlacoochee, Willacoochee, Alapaha, Little, and Suwannee River watersheds in south Georgia and north Florida through education, awareness, environmental monitoring, and citizen activities.

And in a rain that submerged US 84 near the Withlacoochee River Bridge
and washed out Old Lake Park Road you’re telling us
nothing washed from the WWTP down the creek that goes directly to the Withlacoochee River?

I had a nice chat with a Valdosta City Council member last night,
who told me Mayor and staff were on it.
Well,
Mayor who laughed when I told him how mad the Florida downstream counties are,
why is this still happening?
What about your own citizens who are already reporting sewage coming up in their yards?
Aren’t
such spills and leaks what those tens of millions spent on a new WWTP, new force main, etc., were supposed to prevent?

It will be interesting to see what Valdosta reports in its weekly
water quality testing for this week.
That’s the
“River Sampling Program”
mentioned in the press release.
By reports, I mean WWALS sends an Open Records Request every Tuesday,
expecting to get Valdosta’s Wednesday testing data by Friday,
and then
WWALS posts that data.
As I’ve suggested to Valdosta many times,
they could just as easily post their own data.

It may well be that the sheer volume of rainwater overwhelmed anything
spilled into the river.
But it still got into the river.
WWALS has started its own additional testing program, and
you can help.

At least I didn’t have to use tweezers to extract this Valdosta press release.
Thank you Ashlyn Becton for sending it
via email 4:42 PM last night, Monday, December 3, 2018:
Weekend Storm Results in Sewer Spill.

Over the weekend, The City of Valdosta and surrounding areas
received more than 11 inches of rain during a storm event. During
the storm, city infrastructure operated as designed. The
Withlacoochee Plant is designed to have a normal capacity of13.5 MG
per day with a peak average flow of 22.5 MG per day. In addition to
that capacity, the city has also installed a surge tank to accept
additional flows. As a result of unprecedented rainfall into the
plant, the structures were overwhelmed. The current system has four
processing units, although during normal operations the system only
requires one. During this storm event, the Withlacoochee Plant was
running all four units plus the excess flow equalization basin.

On December 2, at approximately 6 p.m., the City of Valdosta’s
Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant identified a sewage spill.
The spill was caused by the large amounts of rainfall received
within a 24-hour period, which resulted in stormwater infiltration
and inflow entering the sanitary sewer system and exceeding the
capacity of the system.

During the storm, the water spilled onto the city plant property,
which is located over one and a half miles away from the banks of
the Withlacoochee River, as well as into a nearby waterway. While
the WWTP has a normal average daily flow of 3.5 million gallons
(MG), this past weekend, the influent flow peaked at more than 32
MG—ten times the normal rate. Unfortunately, we will not be
able to get an accurate number of gallons spilled until the water
recedes from the plant.

Sewer spills are not acceptable at any time. It has been the city’s
top priority to prevent them all through the construction of the new
WWTP and the Force Main, as well as the Lift Station Rehab Program,
Smoke Testing Program, Annual Manhole Rehab Program, and the ongoing
River Sampling Program that tests waters before, during and after
major rain events.

The city continues its ongoing efforts to improve the infrastructure
of the sewer system to eliminate these issues in the future.
Improving our sewer system has and will continue to be a main
priority. For more information, contact the Utilities Department
Environmental Manager Scott Fowler at 229-259-3592 or
sfowler@valdostacity.com.